First time in Japan! We produced videos useful for foreigners during times of disaster(CMO's Blog マーケ監ブログ #006)

このブログの日本語版は「全国初！なぜ四條畷市が英語で防災動画を制作したのか？ALT連携編(マーケ監ブログ#005)」をお読みください。

Hello everyone. My name is Wataru Nishigauchi, a CMO(Chief Marketing Officer) at Shijonawate City.

In the last blog, I introduced the mind of a citizen(Mr. Kenzo Hirai) who suggested sending an explanatory video in English for the first time in Japan. The contents of the video are five levels of "Disaster Warning Level" announced by the revised "Guidelines on Evacuation Recommendations "(Cabinet Office).

Please watch the video here!

In this blog, I introduce Mr. Joseph Baietto who is an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) in a Shijonawate City elementary school. He supervised translation into English, and appeared in the video when we made the video.

Joseph has been an ALT at the city junior high school since 2013 under the "JET Program". Since last year, he provides children with an opportunity to get familiar with English in elementary schools and nursery school as a city official. When we asked for the English version of "Disaster Warning Levels," which had only been explained in Japanese before, he took over immediately. That's why the English version was released soon.

I asked Joseph, who made an effort to be able to release the homepage and the video within one month from the suggestion from Mr. Hirai, about this effort.

CMO:
Thank you very much for responding to special suggestions this time. First, what do you think of this proposal, making the video for foreigners?

Joseph:
I think that making this kind of video for foreigners is a good idea.  Having easily understood information about disaster warnings is very important.

CMO:
Exactly, it is important for foreigners and Japanese to have the same information. Have you had a hard time with this project?

Joseph:
I enjoyed working on this project very much!  Some of the finer points of translating Japanese into English were a little difficult, but, because you (Mr. Nishigauchi) and I exchanged a lot of information, it wasn't too hard.  I was a little nervous filming the video, but thanks to you it went very smoothly.  

CMO:
When shooting the video, you made most of the scenes in one take! So, it is surprising that you were nervous. There were no children at the time of shooting, but you gave me wonderful expressions even in unusual situations.

Joseph:
I think that there is a lot of general information in foreign languages about living in Japan.  However, sometimes I wish there was more specific information about where we live, for example, special city rules and things like that.  Having such information would make live more smooth for both foreign people and Japanese people.

CMO:
Certainly, there are signboards where foreign language translation is oversimplified or non-existent in town.  Foreigners feel the difference in the amount of specific information about living in Japan. Let me refer to such an indication, we would like to think more about information transmission.

By the way, when producing the website and video together, I communicated with you almost entirely in English. What did you think of Nishigauchi's English?

Joseph:
I'm very grateful that you used English!  It was easy to understand, and when I had a question we could talk about it freely.  Thank you very much for working with me. 

CMO:
Thank you very much! My English was not good, but you had a deep understanding of Japanese, so it was very smooth through until completion. Let's work together on information dispatch of the city from now on!

As described above, I am envious of children taught by a teacher who understands Japanese deeply and is rich in expression. We want to cooperate and send out about Shijonawate City in the future.

About this project, starting from "Englishization", we will promote the development of languages ​​other than English with the cooperation of various people. Looking at the percentage of foreigners living in Shijonawate City, there are more people who use Chinese or Korean as their native language.From this, By collaboration with students at "Shijonawate Japanese Class" active regularly in the city, we are preparing to send Chinese version and Korean version. Please look forward to it.

Thank you for reading this time.

Please refer to​ these：
English Explanation of Japanese Weather Warning Levels (Effective 2019)【「水害・土砂災害に係る警戒レベルの導入について」英語版】
​https://www.city.shijonawate.lg.jp/site/bousai/english-weather-warning-levels.html

Shijonawate city's promotion page
​https://www.city.shijonawate.lg.jp/site/citypromotion/

Shijonawate city's ​50th anniversary of the enforcement of the municipal system​
https://www.city.shijonawate.lg.jp/site/50pt/